


reminders of my failures everywhere that I might be

by NewTimelineNewMe



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Post-Finale, more characters and relationships to come when its the morning and im not half asleep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29774568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewTimelineNewMe/pseuds/NewTimelineNewMe
Summary: “And Hera,” Eiffel said. He swallowed thickly, and he knows he’s crying. “Hera, I—“The rising nausea made him pause, and the room began to swim around him, faster than before. Eiffel tried to speak, to tell Hera what he needed to tell her, but no words came out of his mouth. His head felt faint, and his vision quickly filled with black, and then he was falling, falling—Doug Eiffel wakes up at his house.
Relationships: Doug Eiffel & Hera, Doug Eiffel & Renée Minkowski, Doug Eiffel/Kate
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

“And Hera,” Eiffel said. He swallowed thickly, and he knows he’s crying. “Hera, I—“

The rising nausea made him pause, and the room began to swim around him, faster than before. Eiffel tried to speak, to tell Hera what he needed to tell her, but no words came out of his mouth. His head felt faint, and his vision quickly filled with black, and then he was falling, falling—

Doug Eiffel wakes up at his house. It— but there was something— something off. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but everywhere he looked, the dial was cranked another degree to the left. 

He was in his bedroom, although even that fact was weird, but he wasn’t sure why. This was his house, and it was his room, with his clothes in half of the closet. There was no one else there, and it was silent except for the whir of the ac that clicked and hummed, reminding him of something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

There was someone... someone who he needed to tell... something to.

A knocking came from his door, and Doug turned to it.

“Are you up?” Came a voice from the other side.

“Yeah,” Doug answered, striding over to the door. He opened it to reveal Kate, wearing a boatneck t-shirt and some shorts. 

“Bout time, I’d thought you’d sleep for days.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. 

“If only,” Doug smiled, shaking his head. He tried, for a moment, to remember what he had wanted to say to Kate— for it must have been her that he’d had something to say, because who else would it have been, but no words rose to his lips and he let the thought fall.

“Well, Annie’s got a minute before she’s off to her school, so you best get down now if you want a chance to say bye.”

“Mhm, good point,” he smiled, “We wouldn’t want that.” 

He pushed past Kate, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him as he walked down to the dining room. Anne was sitting at the table, a pancake in front of her. 

Doug let go of Kate’s hand, sneaking up behind Anne. He hugged her from behind, and she shrieked in surprise, laughing when she realized who was behind her. He backed up a bit and drummed his fingers on her shoulders lovingly. She pushed his fingers away good-naturedly, and returned to her breakfast.

Kate sat down in the chair next to Anne, and Doug across them both. Kate tapped Anne’s wrist and signed, “Ten minutes until we have to go.”

Anne nodded, and began to shovel the last bites of her pancake into her mouth.

“You look great, Annie,” Doug signs, “I really like that shirt on you.”

Anne beams, and moves to put her plate in the sink. She races off to grab something from her room, and Kate sneaks a quick kiss from Doug, and he reveals in her taste, cheap whisky and that pancake syrup she swears by. They pull apart at Anne’s footsteps, and Kate smiles as she pulls Anne to their front stoop for pictures. She’s starting eighth grade this year, and Doug knows he’s lucky that she’s not embarrassed to be seen with him, and even though he’s gone through this seven times before, Doug finds his eyes tearing up at the thought of his little girl growing up into a brooding teen. Not just the angsty years ahead of him, no, but the thought of her growing up at all, of her making her own way in a world that’s honestly not ready for her fiery spirit. 

When Anne’s gone off on the bus, and they curl up on the couch while their house seems just a tad too quiet, Doug whispers to Kate, “How did we get so lucky?”

“Annie’s a great kid,” Kate agrees, draping his arms around her. “And you’re a pretty decent husband.”

Doug snorts. “Well, you’re a pretty awesome wife.” He plants a kiss on the side of her neck, the beginning of a trail that leads all the way to her mouth. 

“I am pretty awesome, aren’t I?” Kate says, pulling away. “Too awesome, in fact, to be doing the dishes.” Doug groans good-naturedly, and Kate playfully shoves him. “Don’t forget who made y’all breakfast this morning.”

“Alright, alright, my awesome wife, I’ll go do the stupid dishes.” He stands up, Kate rolling off of him. “What’s that new brand of soap we got again?”

“Dawn, should be with the cleaning sprays.” She reminds him.

“Right.” Doug walks over to the kitchen, and Kate turns on the news, where there’s a story about some car crash playing. He finds the soap and starts to scrub, a low ringing building in his head. Another glance to the living room, but Kate doesn’t seem to have noticed anything, so Doug tries his best to shrug it off. There’s a dull thud, and Doug— Eiffel looks back at the television, and there’s flashing blue and red and blue and a _scream_ —

Doug’s standing next to Kate, who’s sitting on the couch, watching some weather report. He’s breathing hard, and he’s not sure why he’s so sweaty, but Kate must pick up on it because she turns to him, concerned, and says, “Were the dishes that bad?”

He blinks. 

“No,” he says after a pause. “Sorry, I think I just had some weird— glitch in the matrix moment.” 

“Oh, hate those.” Kate nods. “Anyways, c’mere. They’re saying it’s gonna rain on Friday, got any idea where our umbrellas are?”

“In the garage somewhere?” Doug shrugged. “Might have to go all National Treasure Hunt to find them, though I figure it’ll be easier than taking the declaration.”

Kate rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. “Well, if you ever find them, you’ll be my Ben Gates.”

“I’m good with that.” Doug smiles. He swoops in for another kiss, and Kate pulls him back when he tries to inch away, but he doesn’t resist, not when she’s grinning like that and he can feel himself grinning back. 

They pull each other to the bedroom, each taking sharp breaths in between the waves of their lips, always pressing back together before long. Their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces, and he remembers exactly how much spunk Kate has. 

Doug isn’t sure how long they spend together, but he knows by the time they pull apart for the last time, he’s exhausted, and smiling like an idiot— which he supposes, he is— an idiot in love. 

He reaches over to wrap his arm around her, and she leans right into his touch, and he feels like he’s been missing her for years. He has been in some ways, he realises, but she’s here now, in his arms, and maybe, _maybe_ , everything could end up okay. 

The doorbell rings. 

Doug curses into his pillow. “I’ll get it,” he tells Kate, who frowns.

“Who could that be?”

“Don’t know,” Doug shrugged, pulling on his pants, “But it could be important.”

“Could be missionaries.” Kate mumbles.

“Could be a landshark.” He smirks, throwing his shirt on.

Kate rolled her eyes. “Very funny.” 

“If you hear screaming, know I died bravely.” Doug joked, walking out the door. 

He opened the front door to see a stiff looking woman, who turned to him with expectation in her eyes. 

“Um. Hi, there,” Doug said when she didn’t offer anything. “We’re not looking to… buy anything.” 

The woman looked confused. “What? I’m not—” she rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Eiffel, now c’mon, I think we’ve found a way—”

“Wait a second.” The way she barks out the order feels military, but she goes it with a degree of familiarity that has Doug searching for her face in his memories. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

“Stop playing games, Eiffel, and let’s _go_.” She grabs his hand, and he jerks back, stepping into the doorway of his house. 

She turns back to him, and he can see her expression change into a soft shock. “You— you legitimately don’t know who I am, do you.” She doesn’t say it like a question. 

“Um, no. So, like, are we about to have some sort of ‘I am your father’ moment, or do I need to call the police?”

She seems sad as she says, “I’m Minkowski. Renée Minkowski. And this—” she paused. “This complicates things. I’m— I saw a library. Can we meet there?”

Doug feels a twinge of annoyance growing. “Look, man, today’s my kid’s first day at school. Try to pick a better day to coerce me into your weird cult shindig, okay?” And with that, he took another step back and shut the door. 

He takes a deep breath.

“So, solve the mystery yet?” Kate asks.

“It was just some rando, pulling some sort of Rhona Kazembe or something. I’m half-convinced she had the wrong house.” Doug sighes. 

“Mhn, well, could be worse.” Kate teases. “Could have been the landshark.”


	2. Chapter 2

Anne walked off of the school bus, throwing herself into Doug’s arms. He laughed, and stepped back, signing, “How was your day? Was everyone nice?”

“It was great! It was fine,” Anne signed rapidly, “My classroom is even cooler than it looked at the open house, and my teacher was cool.” 

“That’s great. Glad to see your year will be more Ms. Honey then Mrs. Trunchbull,” Doug signed with a smile.

“Mr. Benedict, not Mr. Curtain,” Anne agreed.

“Always a good thing,” he smiles. “And I’m glad your day was good. I was going stir-crazy.”

“What about your work?” Anne asks.

“I had the day off, remember?” 

Anne nods in realization. “I forgot.”

The hair on the back of Doug’s neck rose, and he glanced behind him, his eyes sweeping the street.

Anne tugged at his hand. “Everything okay?” She signs, looking worried.

“I think so,” Doug signed cautiously. “Yeah. I must be seeing things, because I missed you so much.”

Anne relaxed. “Well, you can call off the force ghosts, I’m right here.”

Doug smiles, but he begins to walk slightly faster, and he keeps glancing over his shoulder the whole way home. 

Kate welcomes them in, and since it’s the first day, Anne doesn’t have any homework to do, and they decide to celebrate by eating out. Anne picks some small restaurant that they’ve been to before, and overall their evening is… pleasant. 

The whole time, though, Doug couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. 

In bed that night, Kate dozing beside him, his mind wandered back to that Minkowski woman, who still stuck out to him. She didn’t fit, somehow, didn’t stick as some rando with a penchant for odd jedi mind tricks.

Kate rolled over, reaching over and wrapping Doug in a one-sided hug. “I can hear your thoughts twist and shout-ing all the way from here,” she mumbled into his ear. “So shush, cause ‘m trying to sleep.”

“Sorry,” Doug sighed, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “Sorry,” he mumbles again, because he always feels the need to apologize, although he’s not entirely sure why. 

Kate snuggles deeper into his chest, and he holds her tighter, slowly coming to the realization that he’s afraid. Afraid of losing Kate, and Annie too, of his family being ripped away from him.

Doug’s not going to let that happen.

Doug opens his mouth, almost as if to call out to someone, but this is his house and he’s the only one awake and there’s no one listening. Even if Anne were awake, there’s no one who could hear him. He’s not sure why that makes him sad.

Doug closes his mouth, and just pulls Kate closer, slowly drifting off to an uneasy sleep.

\-----

Renee Minkowski had seen a lot of things in her time orbiting the red, sometimes blue, dwarf star known as Wolf 359, and she had lived through it all. 

This, though, might just be her downfall.

Explaining the situation to the others had been… difficult. So far the only brightside they could find was that the extremely rudimentary system they had rigged up worked, and didn’t immediety kill both Eiffel and Minkowski in one electricity caused heart attack. Hooray.

A pseudo-world where Eiffel was living the picket fence life was not what Minkowski had been expecting, sure, but at least it wasn’t some form of personal hell. At least, she thought, remembering a story about alcoholism and deafness, not for her.

When she had been describing what she found, Lovelace had paled slightly, and secretly Minkowski thinks Lovelace was glad she wasn’t the one to go. They weren’t sure how her whole… alien-ness would react to their already fragile system. Hera was too busy running said system, and as far as Miranda and Jacobi, well, Minkowski didn’t trust them as far as she could throw them-- with Earth gravity, that is. Both she and Lovelace decided they didn’t trust either of them for something as… delicate as this. 

“Hey,” Lovelace said, poking her head into the room where Minkowski was sitting. “Hera’s almost ready for another trip to suburbia.” 

Minkowski propelled herself over to Lovelace, firmly ignoring the sudden wave of dizziness. She  _ might’ve _ downplayed the physical effects the trip had on her-- in reality, if it weren’t for the lack of gravity, she would’ve fallen to the floor.

Lovelace stuck out her hand in an attempt to help steady Minkowski, but she brushed it off. Lovelace raised her eyebrows. “You alright there?”

“Fine.” Minkowski grit out. “How soon is ‘almost ready’? We talking an hour, or more like five minutes?”

The pair went out to the hallway, where further down the hall they saw Jacobi, who upon seeing the pair, shouted, “Hera says she’s good to go.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Lovelace said. Minkowski nodded, and the pair trailed after Jacobi into the room where Hera was set up. With all her efforts focused on holding the link to Eiffel open, they had shut down her external systems, and now the shuttle was run by Lovelace, Jacobi, Miranda, and Minkowski when she has the time. 

Minkowski moves, strapping herself to the machine without complaint. Hera, after checking that everything was good with Minkowski, started flicking buttons, and Minkowski felt the machine settle in her head. Her limbs started to numb, and she felt slight tingles all over her body as she fell back in. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think!


End file.
